A Paradigm Shift in Third Sector Theory and Practice

Refreshing the Wellsprings of Democratic Capacity

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3757397
AutoresJon Van Til (Rutgers University at Camden, New Jersey, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen52
Número7
Páginas1069-1081
Fecha de publicación2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764208327675
OpenAlexW2135382336
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas11

For the past quarter-century, the field of voluntary action/nonprofit organization/third sector research has been dominated by a paradigm that focuses on organizations certified as tax exempt by the IRS and subject to an inability to distribute economic assets. This definition has facilitated large-scale empirical research but has dropped from visibility a wide range of important community-based voluntary and nonprofit organizations, including in the United States some 9 million grassroots organizations and a wide range of cooperative and mutual benefit organizations. In recent years, a critical literature has developed that challenges this dominant conception. This perspective has taken form under the leadership of the EMES European Research Network and employs a more expansive conception of the third sector than does the conventional American view. That conception is explored and refined in this article, the argument being that the value of the third sector far exceeds the contributions of tax-certified nonprofit organizations

Argument (complex analysis) · Business · Certification · Economics · Empirical research · Expansive · Grassroots · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Tax exemption · Voluntary action · Community Development and Social Impact · Law · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering